Newsletter

Midsummer Day

In the summer of 2016, Mari-Liis Lill and Paavo Piik visited the village of Verkhne-Suetuk in Siberia. This is one of the last permanently settled Estonian villages in Russia. A school operates in the village where it is possible to learn Estonian. By interviewing younger and older locals, the authors tried to make sense of who or what is an Estonian, and what the story of a distant Estonian village can say to us about the vitality of a people. Regardless of the continually shrinking number of residents, a highly active community that sticks together was revealed in Verkhne-Suetuk, to say nothing of its beautiful natural setting and the old Estonian dialect that has been preserved there. When will we die out? In the spring of 2018, documentary theatre will be born from this expedition, with Tõnn Lamp as its director.

WOMAN: You know what a nurukas is, don’t you?VISITOR: A nurukas?MAN: They say suslik, but suslik is in Russian. But nurukas is in Estonian.WOMAN: We say nurukas, yeah.VISITOR: Nurukas? Is that so?WOMAN: But you say suslik, isn’t that right?VISITOR: That’s right. It’s suslik in Estonian, yes.WOMAN: But we say nurukas.MAN: That’s in Russian, suslik. But nurukas is in Estonian.VISITOR: I don’t usually use that word, it doesn’t really come up. I don’t run into susliks that often, there’s no point in talking about them.MAN: Don’t worry, I’ll show them to you.

In the summer of 2016, Mari-Liis Lill and Paavo Piik visited the village of Verkhne-Suetuk in Siberia. This is one of the last permanently settled Estonian villages in Russia. A school operates in the village where it is possible to learn Estonian. By interviewing younger and older locals, the authors tried to make sense of who or what is an Estonian, and what the story of a distant Estonian village can say to us about the vitality of a people. Regardless of the continually shrinking number of residents, a highly active community that sticks together was revealed in Verkhne-Suetuk, to say nothing of its beautiful natural setting and the old Estonian dialect that has been preserved there. When will we die out? In the spring of 2018, documentary theatre will be born from this expedition, with Tõnn Lamp as its director.

WOMAN: You know what a nurukas is, don’t you?VISITOR: A nurukas?MAN: They say suslik, but suslik is in Russian. But nurukas is in Estonian.WOMAN: We say nurukas, yeah.VISITOR: Nurukas? Is that so?WOMAN: But you say suslik, isn’t that right?VISITOR: That’s right. It’s suslik in Estonian, yes.WOMAN: But we say nurukas.MAN: That’s in Russian, suslik. But nurukas is in Estonian.VISITOR: I don’t usually use that word, it doesn’t really come up. I don’t run into susliks that often, there’s no point in talking about them.MAN: Don’t worry, I’ll show them to you.